THE MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN (Complete Edition: Volumes 1-5). Alexandre Dumas

      Chapter XXXVIII.

       The Wakeful State.

       Table of Contents

      As soon as Lorenza's sight had recovered its power, she glanced rapidly around her. After examining everything without one of the many knick-knacks which delight woman brightening her brow, she stopped with her look upon Balsamo, and nervously shuddered.

      "You again?" she said, receding.

      On her physiognomy appeared all the tokens of alarm; her lips became white and perspiration came as pearls at the root of her hair.

      "Where am I?" she asked as he said nothing.

      "As you know where you came from, you can readily guess where you are," he responded.

      "You are right in reminding me; I do, indeed, remember. I know that I have been pursued by you, and torn from the arms of the royal intermediary whom I chose between heaven and you."

      "Then you ought to know that this princess has been unable to defend you, however powerful she may be."

      "You have overruled her by some witching violence," said Lorenza, wringing her hands, "Oh, saints of mercy, deliver me from this demon!"

      "Where do you see anything demoniacal in me," returned Balsamo, shrugging his shoulders. "Once for all I beg you to lay aside this pack of puerile beliefs brought from Rome, and all the rubbish of absurd superstitions which you have carted about with you since you ran away from the nunnery."

      "Oh, my dear nunnery—who will restore me to my dear nunnery?" cried the Italian, bursting into tears.

      "Indeed, a nunnery is much to be deplored," said Balsamo.

      Lorenza ran to one of the windows, opened the curtains and then the sash, but came against iron bars, which were there unmistakably—however many flowers were masking them.

      "If I must live in a prison," she said, "I prefer that whence one goes to heaven to that which has a trap door into hades." And she began trying the bars with her dainty hands.

      "Were you more reasonable, Lorenza, you would find only flowers at your window, and not bars."

      "Was I not reasonable when you confined me in that other prison, the one on wheels, with the vampire you call Althotas? But still you kept your eye on me when by, and never left me till you had breathed into me that spirit which possesses me and I cannot shake it off. Where is that horrid old man who frightens me to death? In some corner, I suppose. Let us hush and listen till his ghostly voice be heard."

      "You let your fancy sway you, like a child," said Balsamo. "My friend and preceptor, Althotas, my second father, is an inoffensive old man who has never seen you, let alone approached you, or if he did come near, he would not heed you, being absorbed in his work."

      "His work—tell me what the work is!" muttered the Roman.

      "He is seeking the elixir of long life, for which superior minds have been seeking these two thousand years."

      "What are you working for?"

      "Human perfection."

      "A pair of demons!" said Lorenza, lifting her hands to heaven.

      "Is this your fit coming on again? You are ignorant of one thing: your life is divided into two parts. During one, you are gentle, good and sensible: during the other, you are mad."

      "And you shut me up under the vain pretext of this malady."

      "It had to be done."

      "Oh, barbarian, be cruel, without pity! imprison me, and kill me, but do not play the hypocrite and pretend to feel for me while you tear me to pieces."

      "Do you call it torture to live in a luxurious suite of rooms?" said Balsamo with a kindly smile and not at all disturbed.

      "With bars to all the issues!"

      "Put there for the sake of your life, Lorenza."

      "Oh, he roasts me to death at a slow fire, and he talks of my life's sake!" exclaimed the Italian.

      Approaching, he offered to take her hand, but she repelled his as if it were a serpent.

      "Do not touch me!" she said.

      "Do you hate me so much, Lorenza!"

      "Ask the victim how he likes the executioner."

      "It is because I do not want to be one that I restrict your liberty a little. Could you come and go as you like, who can tell what your folly might drive you to."

      "Wait till I am free some day, and see what I shall do!"

      "Lorenza, you are behaving badly toward the husband whom you chose. You are my wife."

      "That was the work of Satan."

      "Poor crazy creature!" said the mesmerist, with a tender look.

      "I am a daughter of Rome," continued she, "and some day I shall take revenge."

      "Do you say that merely to frighten me?" he asked, gently shaking his head.

      "No, no; I will do what I say."

      "What are you saying—and you a Christian woman?" exclaimed Balsamo with surprising authority in his voice. "Is your creed which bids you return good for evil but a hypocrisy, that you pretend to follow it, and you boast of revenge—evil for good?"

      "Oh," replied Lorenza, for an instant struck by the argument. "It is duty, not revenge, to denounce society's enemies."

      "If you denounced me as a master in the black art, it would be not be as an offender against society, but against heaven. Were I to defy heaven, which need but comprise me as one atom in the myriads slain by an earthquake or pestilence, but which takes no pains to punish me, why should weak men like myself undertake to punish me?"

      "Heaven forgets, or tolerates—waiting for you to reform," said the Italian.

      "Meanwhile," said the other, smiling, "you are advised to tolerate your husband, friend and benefactor?"

      "Husband? Oh, that I should have to endure your yoke!"

      "Oh, what an impenetrable mystery?" muttered the magician, pursuing his thought rather than heeding the speaker.

      "Let us have done. Why do you take away my liberty?"

      "Why, having bestowed it on me, would you take it back? Why flee from your protector? Why unceasingly threaten one who never threatens you, with revelation of secrets which are not yours and have aims beyond anything you can conceive?"

      "Oh," said Lorenza, without replying to the question, "the prisoner who yearns for freedom eventually obtains it, and your house bars will no more hold me than your wagon-sides."

      "Happily for you, they are stout," replied Balsamo, with ominous tranquillity.

      "Heaven will send another such storm as befel us in Lorraine, and some thunderbolt will shatter them."

      "Take my advice to pray for nothing of the kind,